Product + UX Design + Startup Advisor

Product + UX Design + Startup Advisor

Dolby Brand Strategy

In partnership with Bolt | Peters, a user research boutique acquired by Facebook in 2013, I helped a historic brand reach new customers by catching them in the act and, well... asking them.

What does Dolby do? If you said: “noise reduction in my 1997 Ford Taurus”, you’re like a number of customers that are out of touch with where Dolby’s business lies today. I helped Dolby figure out its new generation of customers – the segments that don’t quite get how Dolby products and services can make their lives better in the home entertainment space.

My studio set out to better understand who the current customers were that were visiting dolby.com and what their perceptions of the brand were in terms of what it stood for and offered, what they were hoping to find on the site, what they found that was valuable, and when and why they left feeling disappointed.

The team used Ethnio, a web-based remote research service, to intercept actual users in various segments throughout North America, ask them why they were going to the Dolby.com website, what they were trying to do, and how the site was and wasn’t addressing their needs.

We used research synthesis techniques to understand what these users had in common, what truly made them unique, and worked with the client to prioritize and align them with business goals.

We created the skeleton for the 6 users types, identifying their needs, wants, and barriers. We looked at the discrepancy between what Dolby messaged to the customers today versus what Dolby should message to the customers.

The end result was a three part system — a book, one-pager and detailed PDF — describing the customer market segments for a redesign of the Dolby.com website. Our approach was rich storytelling combined with clean, easy to digest actionable words and imagery to describe the needs and barriers of each of the 6 identified user types.